


Look For The Morning (And It Will Be There)

by bladehuntress



Series: Burn Cream For Cats [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blanket Permission, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Zuko (Avatar), after all that murder i think we all deserve a break, based on Muffinlance, i hope im as good at writing lighter scenes as yall seem to think i am at writing darker ones, including the characters, this ones a lot softer, this will be the last work folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladehuntress/pseuds/bladehuntress
Summary: After all was said and done, after the war and the killing sprees and the peacemaking, they knew, somewhere between their ribs where cold fury had once lived, that the Fire Nation would be better for it.(The sun sets on one world and rises on another. And yet time continues. Life goes on like always.)(Well, maybe with a few changes.)
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Series: Burn Cream For Cats [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731832
Comments: 179
Kudos: 568
Collections: Finished111





	1. Right And Wrong Are Human Categories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



Sokka sits in the stands, hands clutching the cold stone of his seat, and _breathes._ Part of him can’t believe he’s here. Part of him can’t believe this is happening.

Before him, Spirit and some nameless noble stand at opposite ends of a platform, bands around their arms and fabric over their shoulders — a sight Sokka had hoped never to see, had hoped Spirit would never again have to experience.

_And yet._

The call comes (Sokka barely hears it) and they turn, and the crowd draws in a breath, all at the same time and audible, as they remember as one what happened the last time their Fire Lord stood in the Agni Kai courtyard.

But then, they’re not the same person now. They’d changed so — well, about as much as you’d expect for someone who’d had their face burned off by their father. Spirit — and isn’t that _galling,_ for them to be so blatantly blessed by the spirits to be allowed to call themselves by that name, where Katara had only survived her brush with the Painted Lady because she’d destroyed that factory, how shocking and constant a reminder of their favour — was different from anyone else he’d ever met, really.

Spirit is deflecting, dodging, never creating fire of their own, and the noble is taunting, goading, wondering aloud if the tales of dragonfire were just tales after all —

_And that flash of white fire, that split-second that wasn’t, didn’t that just prove it? Prove that Spirit was ordained by the Great Spirits, sent to set right what their ancestors had done wrong?_

Sokka’s still not clear on whether it really was Agni who’d struck down Ozai and his heir. He keeps trying to bring it up with Spirit, but whenever he asks, they only smile gently, smoothly change the subject from their country to his, and shift closer as he talks, sitting curled sideways in their chair like some sort of kitten-hornet and humming under their breath, a tic that his sister’s convinced is their version of a purr.

_Funny, though, how they only ever hum to the tune of that old Fire Nation song about the temples’ bells; how, despite all of Aang’s wheedling, it’s the one song nobody can convince them to sing._

On the platform, Spirit grins sharply, and Sokka’s lips twitch up in relief, knowing that they’ve finally decided to stop toying with their prey. They take a deep breath, open their mouth, and —

 _Colours._ Their flames fill with colours as they pour endlessly from their tongue, blooming purple, green, countless shades of blue so much softer than Azula’s; the colours are here one moment and gone the next, existing only between instants, and the crowd is silent behind him, captured awestruck by their fleeting beauty, the only sound the deafening roar of the fire as it prowls and pounces like a living thing, a _wild_ thing —

And then it’s _over,_ and the crowd collectively exhales the breath they’d drawn in, as Spirit steps forward, towards the (miraculously unharmed, save for a few smouldering hairs that fell free from her topknot and were blown into the path of the fire by the very winds it created) noble, looking _for all the world_ like they’re merely taking a morning stroll through the turtleduck gardens. They light one fist with fire as they approach, and the noble falls to her knees, her mouth forming meaningless platitudes even as recognition-realisation- _fear_ dawns in her eyes.

Spirit holds the fire an inch from her cheek; the flames lick eagerly at her skin like hungry animals, close enough that Sokka can _see_ the sweat forming from the heat of it on her forehead, her eye closing from the light, and then they just… put them out.

The noble doesn’t dare move, staring up at them with wonder and horror and rising comprehension, kneeling at their feet in a parody of a scene she herself had watched three years ago, half-expecting Spirit to relight their hand and repay her indifference tenfold.

But they don’t. They turn away from her, sparing her no more than a cursory glance, and sweep harsh eyes over the crowd, their face set with apathy and their jaw unclenched, _uncaring._ Everyone hears what they don’t say. _A mercy I offer you now, an example of the Fire Lord I could be. Do not force my hand. I will not be so forgiving a second time._

And then, abruptly, wordlessly, they stride to the edge of the raised platform, step off, and leave.

As soon as they’re out of sight, the crowd erupts behind him, breathless and somewhere on the way to hysterical, but Sokka’s eyes are fixed on the arch through which Spirit had left. He vaults over the railing and runs, following Spirit and catching them as they turn the corner into an empty hallway. He follows them away, and the words spring unbidden to his lips: _were you sent to right the wrongs of your predecessors?_

Spirit throws back their head and _laughs._

Much later, when Sokka reminds them of this, when he asks again the most pressing of his questions, Spirit will chuckle softly from where their head lays in his lap, will smile a smile he doesn’t recognise on their face and will say only one sentence: _right and wrong are human categories._ And Sokka will frown, because he _knew_ that, he’d _always_ known that, and it will be a very, _very_ long time before he understands that it was what Spirit had _not_ said that was more important and far more telling than what they _had._

Right and wrong are human categories _indeed._


	2. These Graves We're Digging Aren't Our Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the comet, things go a little awry.

Shan knew he should have expected something like this to happen, but somehow, he'd really believed that the Fire Nation commander would follow the Fire Lord's orders.

But, as Huan Zhi had so eloquently put it, Colonel Usugurai was a nasty one.

They'd rushed to the village as soon as they'd received word of the colonel's advance. Some of the wooden houses were already ablaze when they'd arrived, and a group split off to try and find anyone still trapped inside. Fortunately, it seemed most of them had already made it out, sheltering outside the village hall. Unfortunately, that was where Usugurai was, too.

But it could have been worse. It seemed that her soldiers, at least, had some sense — or perhaps they just didn't want to be court-martialed, but the result was the same. They stood uncertainly outside the village, torn between rushing in to help and fleeing, some nodding in assent to something a slim soldier was saying. Shan almost wanted to march up to them and slap them into action. They could use any help they could get.

Beside him, Huan Zhi snarled out something uncomplimentary as Usugurai stepped towards the civilians huddling against the walls of the square. Yan shifted on his other side, one hand on the hilt of his dao. But they were under orders not to attack, for their own sakes. This was a firebender under the comet. They weren't green enough to think they'd stand even the barest sliver of a chance.

Colonel Jie Shi took a step forward. "Stand down, Colonel Usugurai," he called. "You're under orders not to attack!"

Usugurai turned her face to him. "You don't tell me what my orders are, dirt-eater," she sneered. Falling into a stance, she raised her hands, and fire flared around her fists as she singled out a mother and her son at the edge of the crowd —

Somewhere behind them, there was movement and voices, and Shan hissed as he was jostled by someone pushing their way past him. Red uniforms. Red helmets. Red armour.

So, the troops had finally made up their minds.

"No, Colonel!" The voice was a woman's, and shaky, like she couldn't believe she was saying this. "We have our orders. Stand down!"

Usugurai startled, turning on her heel to fully face the transgressor, extinguishing her fire as she did. Her lips curled. "Or what, Major?" 

Shan's eye caught something moving beyond her, and he watched, not knowing how to react, as another red-clad figure dropped silently from a rooftop to land beside the chosen victims (Hudie, he realised distantly, who had offered them food, and her son Luanshi, who'd stared up at them with wide eyes as they'd run through their forms in the square) and step in front of them, backing them into a dead-end alley and planting themselves in front of them, facing their Colonel, hands up and ready.

"We have our orders," the major repeated. "We'll follow them. We don't want to, but if it's necessary, we'll follow them."

Usugurai laughed bitterly. "You're too spineless, Major," she bit out. Fire formed in the cups of her palms. "You wouldn't dare."

She lunged forwards, covering the ground between them in an impossible time — but as she did, firebenders flooded in from every entrance, forming rank upon rank in front of the civilians, hands flaming and swords drawn, ready to fight at a moment's notice. Ready to fight their own colonel. Ready to protect people they'd never known, people of a country they'd besieged for years.

Yan's hand went lax on his dao; Jie Shi turned to face them, his mouth a grim line, and made a gesture: _take cover._ This was not an altercation that they wanted to get involved in.

Usugurai's hands came down on the major, torrents of fire rushing over her, hot enough that Shan could feel the searing heat even from where he crouched, but the major snapped up her hands to pull a wall of fire into existence. The barrier absorbed most of the blow, redirecting what it couldn't, and then she bared her teeth, hurling herself at her colonel with fiery whips in her hands. The whips hit once, twice on Usugurai's shoulders before the major's feet hit her stomach and they both went down, too close to bend, rolling over and over too fast to follow, pummelling and biting, each desperate to get a handle on the other, until, somehow, the major had her pinned by the wrists.

The remaining firebenders took that as their signal to act, sprinting around in a wide arc until they'd trapped the combatants within a circle of emotionless masks, almost blocking the pair from view. The non-benders dashed to close up the new gaps in their ranks, pressing back and closer together.

"Colonel Usugurai, you are _surrounded,"_ the major growled into her ear. "Stand _down."_

Usugurai fought the hold, struggling with her whole body, fingernails scrabbling at the dirt as she sought purchase in the dusty ground. Enraged, she twisted in an attempt to claw at her opponent's forearms, kicking plumes of fire from her feet as her subordinate held her, unwavering, to the ground. "You — you yellow-bellied, Koh-loving _traitor!"_

Grimacing, the major bore down on the colonel with her full weight, forcing her into the ground and spitting, "Get me some spirits-damned chains!"

Incensed, Usugurai writhed mindlessly in her captor's grip, letting out a wordless shriek. Finally, she managed to find sufficient leverage to contort her arm in such a way that allowed her to tear at the major's skin with freshly broken nails, catching her off guard enough that her arm buckled and her hand went slack in surprise. She wrenched her hand free, whipping it up to shove her palm in the major's face, and an uncontrolled stream of fire burst from it.

The major recoiled, turning her face aside so that her helmet caught the flames; they enveloped one side of the metal before sputtering out on the cheek of the helmet. When the fire subsided, she turned back to face the colonel once more, who was collapsed on the ground, utterly spent, but with her hatred and fury still plain on her face.

Slowly, the major reached up and peeled off her half-melted helmet, letting it thud unceremoniously into the dirt. Her face, no longer hidden from view by her faceplate, was steely and determined — the face of a woman who would do whatever it took to see innocents safe. She took a few deep breaths, seeming to steady herself in preparation for whatever she was about to do next.

Raised her hands.

And blasted _fire._

It seemed to last forever, the image of a cool, composed firebender burning to ashes her manic, half-crazed superior, calm as you please. But the major eventually relented, and when she did, the charred form of the former colonel was slumped to the ground, flaking to pieces in the wind. The major took a few more deep breaths, gingerly touched her burned cheek, then balled her hands into fists to quell their shaking, nodded her permission for her soldiers to stand down, and spun around to face them.

Her eyes were a soft sunset-orange, and Shan shrank away from her gaze as they flicked over them all, coming to land on Jie Shi. "Colonel Jie Shi?" she asked, folding her hands behind her back in as nonthreatening a manner as she could. When he nodded his confirmation, she continued, "I'd like to formally apologise for the actions of Usugurai. And we'd all be more than happy to do whatever we can to rectify her mistakes."

Behind her, the sun dawned bright and warm.

The new day had arrived, and with it and the major's words came a new, hopeful world.


	3. Nothing In Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spirit was well aware of the failings of Fire Nation education.

Spirit slammed their hand onto the desk, sparks spilling from their lips. "I don't _care_ if that's what you were taught! You were taught _wrong!"_

Fukaina, head of the Department of Education, looked at them askance, leaning away a little. It was no surprise really — word of the events in the Agni Kai ring had spread like wildfire, and he was a politician, no match for their bending prowess. "And on whose word do you have that, Fire Lord? The Avatar? Who, I might add, is only one, biased child, whereas our scholars — "

Spirit held back a snarl, glaring into his eyes. "Don't try to make this about _me,_ Fukaina!"

"Fire Lord," Fukaina said snidely, nose wrinkling, "I don't mean to _insinuate,_ but there have been concerns raised by your age — "

"You were one of my sister's most ardent supporters, you _hypocrite_ — "

" — or your time spent in — well, every country _other than ours — "_

 _"Silence!"_ Spirit snapped, jerking their upper body sharply forwards, flames flickering on their tongue. "I am your Fire Lord, and if you don't want me to strip you of your titles _this very instant,_ you will be _silent!"_

Fukaina jolted back, yelping and then biting the inside of his cheek, pupils blown wide with fear at their outburst. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, and closed it, his teeth meeting with an audible _clack._

"Better." Spirit drew themselves up to their full height, removing their hands from where they had been planted defiantly on the desk and folding them in the small of their back, the epitome of composure. "The story of the war as it is taught in schools currently is false at _best_ , Fukaina. Not to mention that the supposed reasoning behind it is no better than lies and _slander_ (which I'm sure you can agree I have the right to decide, considering your opinion on my time spent in those countries), and _honestly,_ the less said about what our children are told of the Air Nomads the _better!_

"We will _not_ continue to teach what is, to say the least, _propaganda,_ and we will not continue to endorse _war crimes_ in _schools!_ I don't care if you have to send everyone back to basics to relearn the curriculum, I don't care if you have to drag grown adults back into schools by their _ears._ You _will_ fix this, and I will not take _no_ for an answer."

Fukaina, realising that he was beaten, changed tack. "But all those years of learning," he sighed, "all that time and effort, out the window! _Surely,_ such a _drastic_ change — "

 _"No,_ Fukaina," Spirit said firmly. "I want to see this done within the month. Avatar Aang will be able to provide you with the details; I'm sure you'll be able to arrange an appointment with him if you ask _nicely._ So long as he's not too busy, that is. He _is_ the Avatar, after all."

Fukaina, deflated. "But, Fire Lord," he whined. "Whatever will we tell the students? What about their _parents?_ All those tuition fees down the drain. All their children's years of diligent work, suddenly going up in smoke..."

Spirit gave him a cutting look, golden-glowing ember of an eye hard against his yellow. "In my experience, _Fukaina,"_ they hissed, pouring as much disdain into the name as they could manage. "Nothing in childhood is _ever_ wasted: if not for the lessons it teaches you, then for the lessons it drives you to seek out for _yourself._ So you've been teaching these kids propaganda? _Tell_ them that! They'll learn to fact-check their sources, learn to get every side of every story, to be cautious and think twice about just _believing!"_

Fukaina's face had steadily drained of colour as they spoke. Now, it was almost bloodless, his eyes fixed on their sightless white eye. When he'd gathered himself enough to speak again, it was with the smallest voice they'd heard from him yet. "Yes, Fire Lord," he gasped. "I understand, Fire Lord."

"Good. See to it." Spirit ordered, voice harsh and teeth bared in something that pretended to be a smile, but could never have been mistaken for one. They waited just long enough for Fukaina to realise he'd been dismissed and back out of the room, then turned abruptly and left through the secret fire-door, taking the path that would lead to the turtleduck gardens. "Honestly," they muttered to themselves, shaking their head in resigned exasperation. "Some _people."_


	4. An Adequate Solution To Just About Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ursa has no room to talk, really.

In Spirit’s defence, there was no way they could have known that Ursa would recognise their poisons.

"And all those — those _Spirit-deaths?"_ Her hands gestured wildly. "Were _those_ just murders too?"

"Mother," Spirit interrupted, voice low and dangerous. "How did you know it was poison anyway? And _what,_ exactly, happened to Azulon?"

Ursa’s hands stilled, and a sheepish expression came over her face. "I poisoned him," she confessed.

Toph frowned, crossing her arms in challenge as stone snaked further up Ursa's legs. "Then why is this a problem?"

Ursa scowled at them like they were the one in the wrong. "It’s _different."_

 _"Is_ it now?" Spirit stalked forwards. "Because I’m not seeing how."

"Yes!" She threw her hands into the air. "You’re a _healer!_ You can’t _kill_ people! What about your oath?"

Spirit smiled coolly. "No," they corrected, "Did you miss the part where I’m a warrior, too? I’m a _herbalist_ — it’s a small distinction to make, true, but an important one. You can trust a healer to try to help you, even if you’re their enemy, even if you just finished beating them into the ground. But a _herbalist?"_ Wryly, they shook their head. "You said yourself that most healers wouldn't be able to tell what that poison was, and I'm willing to bet that they'd say the same of half my herbs. You grew up with healers, and I'm willing to bet _you'd_ say the same — that you'd have never seen them, never heard of them. Some more than others."

"What's your point?"

"The point _is,"_ Spirit snapped, "that there's a reason for that. Healers _heal._ Herbalists simply _work with herbs._ We take no oaths and make to promises. I heal, yes, but I'm no healer; if you want a healer, go to _Katara,_ though even she's far from traditional."

Toph grinned. "Healers can't pick and choose their patients, but a herbalist's patients can just as easily become their _victims."_ She snatched a pouch from Spirit's belt and twirled it around her finger by the drawstring. "You want to know the world's worst-kept secret? _All medicines are poisons._ Why, just last month we killed a man with — what was it that's in foxglove?"

"Digitalis?" Ursa stared, half-horrified, half-hysterical.

"Herbalists have no qualms with making use of both sides of a plant's properties." Spirit shrugged, nonchalant. "They're both useful, so why not?" They laughed, turning to the girl at their elbow whose face was pulled into a wolf-shark's smile. "Two-faced _indeed._ A two-faced herbalist with two-faced herbs: yes, that's who I am."

"Besides," Toph addressed Ursa, "You've been gone for _five years._ Years in which they thought you were _dead,_ when really, you'd poisoned the Fire Lord to death and fled the country. You, of _all people,_ have no room to complain about their... liberal use of poison in problem-solving, shall we say. Really, if anything, you should be _proud!"_

Ursa grimaced, clenching her hands into fists at her sides, head tilted down, ashamed. "I'm..." She took a deep breath. "I'm still not happy about it, but," she paused. "You're right, I think. I mean, I don't agree with it, but your reasoning is sound, and whilst the method is — _distasteful,_ I've judged you the same way others would have judged me. I'm sorry for that. Not for disagreeing, or getting upset, but I'm sorry that I didn't consider that."

"You won't try to stop us?" Toph questioned. "You'll keep this to yourself?"

"I might try to, ah, persuade you to use different methods..."

Spirit shook their head. "It's a last resort. If we can avoid it, we do."

Ursa nodded in understanding. "Then, no. I won't try to stop you — though I'll have no part in it, don't get me wrong — and I shan't tell anyone, either. I've spent enough time in the Earth Kingdom not to want this country to fall back into war."

Toph nodded approvingly, releasing her from her marble restraints. "That's good to hear," she smiled, but this time it was genuine. "Now, what's all this Spirit was telling me about the Ember Island Players?"


	5. If You Want To Get Away With It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Spirit's freeing the prisoners of war. Did you really think they'd leave it at that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've explained this before, but the reason my Fire Nation characters have such a variety of different eye colours is because they can have any colour present in a naturally occurring carbon fire (coal, wood, charcoal etc.). This allows them to have any shade from red to yellow, but still cuts out colours like green and blue which we get in gas fires or from metals in flame tests.
> 
> As such, the Water Tribespeople can have any colour the sea appears in (light, translucent turquoise to dark greyish navy), the Earth Kingdom people can have any colour found in non-flowering trees (tans to browns to greens) and the Air Nomads had a spectrum of cloud colours for their eyes (pearly white to smoky charcoal-greys).

The woman glared up at her from the floor.

"Get up."

"Well, if it isn't the warden's girl," the woman hissed, dragging herself to her feet by the cooler door's handle. She wiped melting hoarfrost from the strands of her lank, dull hair from which it hadn't already been dislodged by her rough removal from the cooler, reflexively blinking droplets from her lashes. "The frost you want? I _told_ you people, y'already got us all!"

Mai's eyebrow twitched. "I'm nobody's _girl,_ Anzu, and certainly not the _warden's."_ She tipped her chin up and looked at the prisoner over her nose. "And that's not what I'm here for. Or do you want me to put you back in?"

"No," Anzu squinted, scarlet eyes flicking over Mai and her two guards before settling defiantly on her yellow ones. "Whassit, then?"

Mai raised her hand, delicately holding the scroll just out of reach. "This is a missive from the Fire Lord," she elaborated dispassionately. "It arrived just this morning. It gives me the authority to release prisoners as I see fit."

"Suffocatin' _smoke,_ why you telling _me_ about this? Shuncha be releasing prisoners of war or something, not _traitors?"_

"Because I'm considering releasing you, of course, and I've ordered _them_ released already. Why else?"

Anzu pressed her back against the wall. "'f you do, you'll only get yourself killed," she snapped. "I'm not goinna change my mind about the Fire Lord just 'cause you wanna release me."

"Good." Mai tucked the scroll into her pocket and folded her hands behind her back. "But I don't think you'll be trying to kill the Fire Lord again."

"Just you try and _frostin' stop —"_

"Why did you try to kill the Fire Lord?"

"My kid was in the 41st, weren't they?" Anzu snarled. "Murdered by that monster you call your lord, them and all their friends, and then 'is own son for tryna save 'em. O' course we tried to kill him; we _all_ did, I just 'appened to be one o' those unlucky enough to survive."

"Hm." Mai blinked, considering, then pulled the letter back out and offered it to Anzu, who eyed it like it was hiding some sort of feral animal. "You're a special case, Anzu, so I wanted to speak with you in person about this, and I've heard all I need to. Perhaps you'd like to read this?"

Anzu hesitated, conflicted, then snatched the scroll from Mai's fingers like she expected her to withdraw the offer. She unravelled it as she read, skimming over the official language of the writing, glancing back up at her every few moments in her reluctance to let them out of her sight. Mai could _see_ the moment her eyes snagged on something that interested her, something that she didn't expect.

"Fire Lord... _Spirit?_ There's a new Fire Lord?"

Mai almost wanted to smile. _Now_ they were getting somewhere. "There is."

Anzu paused. "Tell me 's not Azula."

"Azula is dead."

Anzu straightened, pushing herself off the wall. Automatically, she rolled the scroll back up, expertly tying it with the golden ribbon in one of the moves that had earned her the position of a royal scribe when she'd still been young. "Then who?"

"Fire Lord Spirit only recently returned to us from the Earth Kingdom. They returned with the Avatar, and Agni himself struck down the Fire Lord and his heir, and appointed them as his champion." Mai carefully tugged the scroll from the prisoner's slackening grip, smoothing down the corner that had been dog-eared when Anzu had grabbed it. "Their face was burned half-off by their father, and he abandoned them half-dead in the Earth Kingdom." She tapped the scroll with one nail meaningfully. _"If you want to get away with it, never do anything by halves,"_ she quoted. "So I'm not. What do you say?"

Anzu's eyebrows were raised in what looked like scepticism, but the corner of her mouth slowly twisted into a wry, lopsided smirk. "I say you're taking that too much to heart, if you're talkin'a me afore anyone else. I say you're all insane, releasing a trait'rous, murderin' maniac the likes o' me." She bowed to Mai, her hands forming the Flame for the first time in three years. "An' I say if this Spirit is who I think they are... then I'd very much like to meet them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it was really, really hard to get into Mai's head. Hard enough that I kind of left out a lot of personality and made the narration less personal than it's been for a while. Sorry it's taken so long, but it was really fighting me.
> 
> A lot was different in this chapter, narration aside. Anzu's accent, for example. I hope it's not too hard to understand for anyone who's not from the UK; I did my best to translate the phonetic sounds into something that people who weren't familiar with the accent could understand, and I think I did okay (thank you, Eng Lang A Level). It's pretty easily recognisable as a regional accent over here, but it's pretty different from accents anywhere outside the UK, so. If you have trouble with any of it, please just ask?


	6. The Place Where We Stop The Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had taken a long time, a lot of hard work, and a rather alarming bodycount. But they’d made it. Finally, for the first time in their life, they were home.

Firebenders are just as susceptible to dehydration as anyone else. Waterbenders, too, need fire in their icy fortresses. Earthbenders need air to breathe, and even airbenders need a place to come down from the sky from time to time.

These are things Katara _knows._ They have always been things that Katara knows, of course, but knowing is different from _knowing._

Here is another thing Katara _knows:_ a lot can change in a year.

It's something Kanna has said over and again, just one of those things that people say. One of those things you never realise the truth of until it slaps you in the face like a Sokka with a fish. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, another thing Katara has gone from knowing to _knowing_ within the course of the past year.

Here are the things that can change in a year: the world, people, perspectives.

Here are the things that _have_ changed in a year: the world, people, perspectives.

Katara stands in a country that, a year ago, she had only hoped to see when she sailed a Water Tribe ship victorious into the heart of her defeated enemies' home, a master waterbender, the Fire Lord's head flying from her mainmast like a pennant, her family standing triumphant and strong at her side. Only two of these things have come true. Only two of these things will ever be true.

A year ago, there had been no Avatar. A year ago, she'd barely been able to bend. A year ago, her people had been dying. A year ago, the Fire Nation had been a country of monsters, of demons formed from flame who held onto human form by the tips of their fingers, simmering beneath the surface like sea-prune stew that she'd left unattended just a little too long. A year ago, she'd thought she'd known the truth of the world: that it was cruel, that fire was evil, and that life was, at its core, unfair.

She'd been wrong, of course. Because life is only unfair if we give up, because fire could be tamed into candlelight, and because, though the world _could_ be cruel, it could be kind, too. Not always. Not consistently. But it had the potential to be, if she took every opportunity offered to her (and a few that weren't) to _make it._

Katara stands beside people who had, in the space of a year, transformed from _her mother's killers_ into... well, into _people._ People with feelings as real as hers, with lives of their own, people who've struggled just as much as she has to reconcile with everything that comes with the end of a war. People that gravitate towards _her_ for advice on how to cope, who look to her as a _role model_ of all things, who admire her - _her!_ \- for her understanding, no matter how recently and reluctantly it came. People who look at her with awe in their eyes that she doesn't know how to react to, who ask her questions she doesn't know how to answer, who seek wisdom they're convinced she can offer, and somehow, between all of the fighting and the swearing and the people-wrangling, she's become a figurehead to people she'd never thought she'd feel anything but hatred for.

And Katara has learned that if it quacks like a turtleduck, and swims like a turtleduck, and dotes on Spirit as much as all the turtleducks in the palace gardens seem to, it's probably a firebender. But that doesn't mean anything to her, not anymore. She's seen a truth that none can accept without experiencing it for themselves. She's seen that there's a little bit of everything in everyone, a little bit of each element in every person she's met. She's seen sand fly like wind and air that presses people into the ground with its weight. She's seen ice that burns and flames that heal.

 _I've seen things you can only imagine,_ she'd said to a student who'd had his world upside down, who'd had everything he'd thought he'd known turned on its head overnight, who'd come to her, desperate, searching for a way to explain his new reality. _I've seen grass growing in the deepest reaches of the Northern fortress. I've seen volcanoes in the Earth Kingdom and Air Temples carved into cliffs. What more proof do you need, to know that harmony exists everywhere, if only we have the presence of mind see it? We've been blinkered for long enough. Seek,_ she'd said, knowing how intense she looked in her conviction, knowing that her words would spread, would reach the ears of people she'd never meet and that they would listen, knowing that she held within her now the power to convince, to provoke thought, to incite change. _Seek, and ye shall find._

By the end of the day, one more example would be added to her list of nature's harmonies.

* * *

The Fire Nation was both humid and hot. Located in the tropics as it was, even the seas were warm, and it was obvious to Spirit how unnerving that small, simple fact was to their Water Tribe friends. Water, they maintained, should be cold.

It was plain to anyone who knew the signs that the oppressive heat wore on them. They just weren't used to it, and in all likelihood, would never be entirely comfortable with it, in the same way Spirit would never like to spend a significant amount of time in the poles. It just didn't feel _right._ And it wasn't just the climate: the sheer difference of the culture that came with it also left the siblings reeling. Sokka, in particular, had mourned the fact that playing snow snake was impractical, or impossible, if Katara wasn't there. Dirt, he'd discovered, created far more friction on the sticks than snow.

But, in the same way the Spirit Oasis in the North had acted as a reprieve for them, they knew there were ways they could alleviate their friends' discomfort. Which was how they all found themselves being ushered onto an enclosed gondola without an explanation as to _why_ beyond Spirit's knowing grin. They don't question further; they'd realised long ago that there was no getting out of Spirit something they'd decided not to say. Spirit smiles, though, and informs them that the trip up will take a while, so they all make themselves comfortable on the padded seats that line the edge of the gondola.

Yuki, sharp scarlet and soft gold, slinks down their arm from their shoulders as they move to one of the seats. He prowls unerringly across the floor, a born predator, silent but for the clacking of claws on metal, to settle on Colonel Rin's lap. She strokes a hand through his gilded mane as he curls into a loose ball between her legs, one side of her mouth lifting. The expression softens her stern, war-weathered face, lifting years from her as she smiles down at the cat-sized dragon.

There were few people, outside of their friends, that Spirit genuinely admired, but Rin was one of them. They'd met her when she'd been transported back to the Caldera for treatment following the Comet and promoted her on the spot - she'd fought her own superior and had the wounds to prove it. Her burn was a mirror of Spirit's own, scalded into her flesh as her helmet was misshapen under the intensity of the traitor's fire, warping against her face and melting into her skin, and it was only the palace healers' expertise that had kept it from taking her sight. Though she could still mostly see and hear, her ear had become a shell of its former shape, and her left eye would be forever deformed.

She'd never admit it, and had sworn them to silence, but when she'd first seen her reflection, she'd cried. And then, when they'd tried to ask if she wanted to be alone, she'd told them that she wasn't _upset_ about her ruined looks. She'd told them she was proud of what she'd done. She'd told them that she'd consider it a badge of her honour for as long as she lived.

That had made Spirit cry, too.

The journey passes in comfortable quiet, filled with the soft sound of small movements and the occasional hushed word. Toph works on her metalbending, pulling up layers of the floor before smoothing them back down again; she may be powerful but her new forms still lack finesse, and she uses every spare moment to perfect it. Aang also works on his bending, combining elements in increasingly complex tricks. Katara pulls out her ajagaak, and Sokka spends the time teaching Momo to play fetch. To his immense frustration, Momo doesn't seem to comprehend the purpose of the game, preferring to hoard the trinkets Sokka throws his way rather than return them.

When they arrive, Guard Choko stows the sun-cakes she's been offering around and opens a compartment in the wall, pulling out bundles of red-dyed parkas and passing them around. Spirit pulls one on without complaint and hands one to Toph by the hood so she doesn't have to work out which way to put it on. Sokka and Katara hold theirs, confused, until, her vermillion eyes crinkling in a smile, Choko slides open the door.

The cold hits them like a wall, and Spirit can _see_ the way their eyes light up. They scramble into their parkas in their rush to get out, and Momo scampers into the snow after them. Toph steps out more hesitantly, having grudgingly accepted a pair of shoes for fear of frostbite. She wouldn't have come, but she's never experienced snow before (even when it snowed in Gaoling, her parents had kept her inside, and the grounds were always quickly cleared and gritted), and she point-blank refuses to go to the poles, where there's nothing to earthbend at all. Here, at least, there's stone under the permafrost.

Everyone else follows at a more sedate pace. Curious, Yuki pokes the snow with his nose and sneezes at the temperature, sun-bright eyes looking to Spirit for reassurance. He taps it a few more times with his paw before accepting that it's safe and jumping headlong into it. It's deep enough that he's almost buried it it, and he writhes and wriggles like a bird in a dust bath. The snow melts against his hot scales and he clambers up Spirit's body to sprawl around their neck inside their hood like a scarf, tucking his snout into the collar of their parka. His three-toed paws tighten on their collarbone until there are points of pain where his claws dig through their silk robes, but they don't mind. It reminds them that he's there, reminds them of what they've lost, of what they've gained, of why they'd done everything they had in the first place.

Spirit takes a deep breath of the thin air. They are already acclimatised to the thin air of high altitudes by their stay in the Earth Kingdom, and sea-level air feels thick and wet in comparison. The mountaintop is high, one of the highest in the Fire Nation, but not high enough to be completely inhospitable to plants. Spirit spots a patch of alpine fritillaries in the collage of sedges and mosses a little way down the mountainside and pulls on their gloves, heading down the mountain to harvest the medicinal plants. Behind them, the voices of their friends echo against the crags of the mountain as they run through the snow, and Spirit smiles at the sound.

They'd changed the world, they knew. They'd made a world where people could be _happy._

And so what if their method of getting there had been less than savoury? So what if nobody could ever know what they had done? _So what_ if they had murdered their way to a better world?

Because that's what it _was._ A better world. And it would only continue to get better.

Spirit would do anything to protect what they have now. And they would do it again, they would do it in any world, if it gave them a chance to have even a fraction of this. It was worth it. It would always be worth it.

They were home.

* * *

_(This is not an end, never an end.)_

_(This is only the place where we stop the story.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been a trip, and I hope you've all enjoyed this as much as I have.  
> Seriously, though? You’ve all been amazingly supportive and the best readers I could have hoped for. You're all wonderful and I love you and I'll treasure every comment you leave. I honestly don't have the words to explain what you mean to me.  
> Thank you all so much.


End file.
